Christmas Eve With You
by drizzleandhurricane
Summary: Maybe his nights weren't silent and his town wasn't so little and his Christmases weren't always white, but he was in love with his life. Which meant that as much as he hated church and most of those cheesy Hallmark traditions, he was sitting next to Marley with an impatient baby in his lap, his fingers intertwined with hers just like every other aspect of his life was.


"Hurry up! We're going to be late!" Marley urged him as soon as he walked in the door, trying to put a coat on their squirming one-year-old son.

Jake raised his eyebrows at her with a grin. "Hey to you, too. My day was good, thanks for asking," he replied teasingly, purposely walking in slow motion across the tiled kitchen floor to lean down and plant a kiss on his wife's lips.

"Hi. Sorry," she apologized, smiling sweetly at him as she pulled away. "I'm glad you're home. _But_ we're supposed to be at church in fifteen minutes, and we can't be late!"

Jake laughed, rolling his eyes. They weren't always a couple known for their timeliness, especially once Logan came along. It was always Marley who kept them moving on schedule, although she'd relaxed a little bit over the last year. Having a baby made everything seem busier and crazier, and they'd had to relax (or become a little bit more regimented, in Jake's case) or they would lose their minds. "Okay, let me go change my shirt and I'll meet you two in the car," he told her, ruffling Logan's hair as he stood back up, quickly walking up the stairs and into the bedroom to change his rumpled, spotted work shirt for a nicer button down. They weren't the most religious of people—technically speaking, Marley was Baptist and Jake was Jewish, if you were going by the families that they were born into, but Jake went to Synagogue when he remembered and didn't feel too lazy or if it was a holiday, and Marley went to church on Christmas Eve and Easter. She wasn't quite the same sweet and innocent girl he'd fallen in love with ten years ago, but Christmas seemed to bring that side out again. She still had trouble accepting the idea that they would be late anywhere, and _God forbid_ it be church on those rare occasions that they went.

Jake quickly tucked his shirt in, threading a belt through the loops in his pants before taking the stairs two at a time out the back door into the garage. He climbed into the car next to his impatient wife, unable to keep from laughing at the antsy expression on her face—he knew she wanted to say something about what a slow poke he was, but she was trying so hard to keep it in. "You finally ready, baby?" he asked her with a grin, putting the keys in the ignition and backing the car out the driveway. Marley just made a face at him, a giggle escaping her mouth.

In five minutes, they were pulling into the crowded church parking lot—a whopping five minutes early, to Jake's surprise and Marley's relief.

"You're here!" Joe greeted them at the door with a smile as he shook Jake's hand and hugged Marley. It had been years since he'd shaved off the dreads, but he always managed to take Jake by surprise when he saw him, always expecting the tarantula hair from his old friend. Nobody was surprised when Joe went off to seminary and became a preacher, and although nobody in their group of friends had shared his religious fervor to quite Joe's extent, it was always an unspoken agreement that went they went to church, it was Joe's. They weren't misfits anymore, they had all outgrown the petty high school social rankings and prejudices, but they'd looked out and supported each other for so long that they hadn't really known how to stop. So, simply, they never did.

They exchanged the run of the mill pleasantries ("Work going well?" "How are Sugar and the girls?" "Logan's getting so big!") before making their way over to Quinn, Puck, and Bella, standing near the wall slightly off to the side.

"Hey, man," Puck nodded at his brother as Quinn and Marley traded babies. Bella was about the same age as Logan, although she didn't have quite his energy—she smiled contentedly in Marley's arms while Logan screeched and squirmed to get down, probably hell bent on either destroying the ornaments on the nearby Christmas tree or putting them in his constantly-drooling mouth.

Quinn, used to dealing with Puckerman boys, ignored him as she squealed, reaching out to put a hand on Marley's bulging stomach. "I'm pretty sure you got even more adorable in the last three days."  
Marley laughed, rolling her eyes. "If by adorable you mean huge, then yes. I'm only six months, and the doctor keeps checking my due date to make sure he didn't get it wrong. I'm like a planet!"

"An adorable planet," Quinn told her, turning to Puck and making her blue eyes round, huge, and irresistible as she mouthed _Please?_

"No. No fuckin' way," Puck said vehemently, shaking his head and ignoring the scandalized glances from some of the regular church-goers standing near them. "When Bells starts sleeping through the night, then we can have a conversation about it. A short one."

Quinn's puppy dog eyes turned into a scorching glare as she turned back to Marley with a huff. "For God's sake, I landed the wrong Puckerman. I can't get Noah to even tuck his shirt in. I don't know why I even try."

"I'm a Jew in Gentile territory! I am allowed my small protests," Puck told her, frowning.

Jake snorted, knowing that he would never get away with that with Marley. Then again, he had always done things for her that he never would have imagined doing for anyone else. When he'd met her, he was just a lost kid trying to figure out how to be a man—he'd never had anybody around to show him, and from what he'd heard about the Puckermans before him in Lima, _man_ was synonymous with _badass._ So that was what he'd tried to be, regardless of who he hurt. Then he'd met Marley, who was just _better_ than anybody he'd ever known before in his life, and she made him want to be better, too. Being a badass didn't matter so much to him anymore. He'd figured out that the best way to be a man was to do all the things his own father had been too afraid to do—fall in love, do what he knew was right even if it meant it was hard. He worked his ass off in high school so that he could get into college and get his architecture degree, he sat semi-patiently through the many torturous meetings about flowers and guest lists and menus, spent long days dealing with idiots at his construction business, got up when he felt dead on his feet to rock Logan back to sleep in the middle of the night. Maybe his nights weren't silent and his town wasn't so little and his Christmases weren't always white, but he was in love with his life. Which meant that as much as he hated church and most of those cheesy Hallmark traditions, he was sitting next to Marley with an impatient baby in his lap, his fingers intertwined with hers just like every other aspect of his life was, and he didn't regret a single second.

Quinn rolled her eyes, shifting Logan over to her hip as she checked her phone. "It's almost six, we should probably go grab a seat. Finn and Rachel are on their way, but they told us to save them a few spots."

Logan made a mad grab for the phone, a maneuver Quinn avoided as she shoved her smart phone out of reach into her purse. He screeched, his face scrunching up in a cry as he reached over. He was so used to Marley letting him play with her phone that he considered every grown up's phone his own, regardless of the immense number of toy phones they bought him in an effort to save their own phones from cracks, drool, and smeared fingerprints.

Jake reached over to take Logan as they walked into the sanctuary of the church and sat down in an empty pew next to Ryder and Kitty.

"Nice of you guys to finally show," Kitty whispered, her tone disapproving as Ryder snored next to her. She elbowed him in the ribs with a frown.

"What? Is it over yet?" he asked her, awaking with a start.

Jake grinned. "I wish. Unfortunately, it hasn't even started."

"You guys are ridiculous!" Kitty hissed. "We have to remember the real reason for the season!"

"Yeah, eggnog and booze," Ryder muttered in response. He was saved from an angry retort by his wife as Joe came up to the front with his guitar, inviting all of them to stand and sing with him. Finn and Rachel snuck in with their three kids halfway through the first song, Brittany and Santana trailing in behind them pushing Artie's wheelchair with Kurt, Blaine, and the twins in tow. Jake couldn't help but smile as he waved at his friends. The only people that were still in Lima were the Puckerman clans and Ryder and Kitty. Christmas was one of the few times that they were all together again, and it felt like they were all still one big family.

After a few minutes of singing, everyone sat down. Jake put Logan in between him and Marley, handing the baby his cell phone in an attempt to keep him quiet. Of course, it had been an empty hope—Logan babbled away in his own made up language as he tapped and pressed every button he could find, taking a break every minute or so to shove the corner of the phone into his mouth. Marley kept turning deeper shades of red as she shushed him, causing Logan to look up at his mom in curiosity, quiet down for all of ten seconds, and then start screeching again. He probably liked the way his voice echoed in the large room. Jake and Puck had to avoid meeting each other's glances, because every time they did, the brothers dissolved into a fit of semi-silent laughter, causing smacks on their arms from both wives.

"Mommy, hands aren't for hitting," Jake told Marley teasingly the third time she reached out and slapped his shoulder. "What are you gonna teach Logan?"

"Yeah, keep your kid under control, Mar," Puck chimed in, glancing smugly over at Bella (who'd fallen asleep in Quinn's lap).

Marley just sighed, closing her eyes in frustration as Logan dropped the phone and started crying. She reached over for him, starting to stand up as Jake stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm. "I've got him, babe, you stay," he told her, picking up Logan and kissing her on the forehead before he stood up and carried Logan out into the foyer. Of course, the baby was fine as soon as Jake put him down and watched him run clumsily all around the room, and even though he was usually a good sport about getting dragged into church (more than Puck, anyways), he didn't mind the excuse to leave the service a little bit early. This was one of the times that he thanked God that his kid inherited his attention span.

Jake scooped the baby up as people started filing out of the sanctuary. Puck walked over to his brother, pounding Logan's tiny fist.

"That'll be ten bucks, Little Puckerman," he grinned at Jake.

Jake rolled his eyes, taking out his wallet and forking the money over to his brother.

Ryder, Artie, and Blaine came over to join the rest of the guys, grinning at the transaction.

"Leave it to you guys to bet on whose kid has to leave the service first," Blaine shook his head with a laugh.

Ryder sent a wary glance over towards his wife. "I think Kitty would flip if that happened. Hell, I'm afraid to make noise in church because I know she'll kick my ass. Whenever she has the baby, it's gonna have to be one regimented kid."

Jake just shrugged, following his friend's gaze over towards where their wives and Kurt gathered, gushing over their kids and Marley and Kitty's expected arrivals. "You'd be surprised how much having a kid makes them relax, actually."

Ryder raised his eyebrows. "This is Kitty we're talking about."

They all laughed, unable to argue with that one. She had always been intense—some things never really changed. Still, they all had it pretty good, Jake had to admit. He'd never thought that small town life would ever be for him. For as long as he could remember, his plan had been to do the bare minimum—barely pass high school, get the hell out of Lima and go do something exciting, anything that he wanted in any place he could dream of. No attachments, no responsibilities, just the wind through his hair and the freedom to go anywhere and do anything he wanted at a moment's notice. But, somehow, he'd been talked into college, then he'd gotten married, and that old plan had changed and reformed to accommodate his wife, his son, his family. He would have laughed at anyone who even suggested the possibility of all of this when he was sixteen (and then probably beaten them up), but there was nothing he would go back and change if he had the opportunity. He was standing with a group of his best friends making plans to go out to a bar and watch a game as soon as the holiday madness wore off, and he got to go home with the most beautiful woman and the greatest kid in the room—hell, in the whole town.

He made small talk and jokes along with the rest of the guys, but his eyes stayed glued for a few extra seconds on Marley on the other side of the room, marveling at the way her smile and her squinted, perfect blue eyes made the lights on the tree and the chandelier on the ceiling seem that much brighter, even though her laugh put every light in the world to shame. He'd known her for ten years and still felt the same way he had the first time he saw her—in absolute awe at how anybody could be that flawless, could have that air of perfectly angelic innocence mixed with that undeniably hot, sexy quality that she didn't even know she had. He would do anything just to see that smile, freeze time so that he could get lost in those ocean-on-a-clear-day eyes forever. Even after ten years, his stomach did flips whenever he was around her. Even after ten years, his palms got sweaty and his heart beat faster and he smiled so much that he felt like his face was going to become permanently over-stretched like silly putty because, for some strange reason, he was lucky enough to be able to call her his. There was nobody else that he would dare be so candid around, that he would rethink things for or apologize to when he didn't think he'd done anything wrong, nobody else that he would go to church for or cuddle with or say "I love you" to a thousand times a day (even though it still didn't even come close to conveying the true, deep extent his feelings were for her).

After a few more minutes of precious guy time, they walked over to meet their families and significant others. Jake wrapped his arms around Marley from behind, his hands resting on her basketball-sized stomach as she leaned against his chest. He kissed the side of her head, asking her softly if she was ready to go home as she nodded, reclaiming Logan from Artie (who was the baby's new favorite as he was intrigued with anything that had wheels). They hugged and shook hands, saying their goodbyes before walking out the door, getting back into the car, and driving through the dark and peaceful streets. Christmas lights illuminated almost every house and business, and a soft snow was starting to fall on the town, the soft glow making their world seem like something out of a storybook.

When they got home, they gave Logan a Christmas tree cookie and made a big deal out of putting the rest of them on a plate for Santa and the reindeer. They carried him up the stairs, changed him into a pair of warm and festive footie pajamas, and read him _The Night Before Christmas_ before kissing his warm, messy hair and putting him in his crib as they hoped halfheartedly that he would sleep all through the night (although their Christmas would probably start just as early as the rest of their days did).

Quietly, quietly they tiptoed down the stairs and snuggled up on the couch to watch _Christmas Vacation_ for the fiftieth time. Quietly, quietly they crawled under the blanket to take advantage of their time alone, paying absolutely no attention to the comedy playing on the screen. Quietly, quietly Jake wrapped his sleeping wife in a blanket and carried her up the stairs (the added weight from her pregnancy making the task slightly more difficult than usual) into their bedroom, gently tucking her in and pulling her close to him as he crawled into bed next to her. Maybe he was too old to believe in Santa Claus and Christmas magic, but as he shut his eyes and relaxed into the pillows, he could have sworn he heard the slight echoing of sleigh bells off in the distance, somewhere outside the frosted glass of his window.


End file.
